Loved, loved, loved it! Incidents Around the House was so good I read it in one day! Thank you NetGalley and Del Ray for this advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest review.

The dread and suspense of waiting for the scenes with other mommy were all that got me through this book. I hated Belas parents, they trauma dumped on her and treated her like a therapist. THE MONOLOGUES. OH MY GOD. cut out the monologs and make them shorter.

Talk about a true horror book. This book is legit scary. The imagery of “Other Mommy” was giving me full body chills. I made the mistake of starting this at night and actually had a hard time sleeping that night. I learned my lesson and finished this in the daytime.

Are there small things about this book that I could nitpick? Yes. But I’m trying not to critique it to the point where I convince myself to give it a lower rating because I did enjoy the book overall and it did its job by creeping me tf out.

If you want a quick, easy read that is almost guaranteed to creep you the eff out like a horror movie, then pick this up when it comes out or save it for spooky season!

*Keep in mind, this book is told from the perspective of an 8-year-old so it reads that way and is formatted very uniquely because of it. You get used to it, but fair warning.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬:
It is very rare that a book actually scares me…but bravo to Malerman, because this one scared the crap out of me! This is the definition of spine chilling, creepy, and terrifying. I love a good supernatural horror book, and this one exceeded my expectations. I will admit, I was unsure I would enjoy this book at first as it is from the POV of a child, but it is far from anything juvenile or childish. Malerman does a fantastic job with the storyline from a child’s POV, yet delivering the reader scare, screams, chills, and thrills😱 From the plot, the characters, the dialogue, the creepy atmosphere, and the amount of chills this one gave me…it exceeded my expectations and I have officially added Malerman to my list of auto-buy authors! If you enjoy horror movies such as Insidious and Paranormal Activity definitely pick this book up, but my suggestion to you is not to read it alone late at night like I did😱 No other book or author has been successful in scaring the living daylights out of me, or building up the anxiety and tension- so that in itself is a huge accomplishment! CONGRATS TO YOU JOSH for writing such a phenomenally creepy, spine chilling horror novel that I will never forget.

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗜𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗘𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆:
✦Horror movies- think Insidious and Paranormal Activity
✦Excellent plot, characters, dialogue, and a creepy atmosphere
✦Plenty of spine tingling moments
✦A book that scares you and gives you anxiety 😱


𝐌𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️5/5

That was wild! Talk about creepy! Never really got into the haunted house type books but this was really worth it! Thank you NetGalley for publisher for the arc!

WOWZA! Josh Malerman has a horror masterpiece on his hands with Incidents Around the House! I was fully invested, sitting on the edge of my seat, turning the pages, and wanting more, more, more!

Eight-year-old Bela lives with Mommy and Daddo Russ until one day when 'Other Mommy' comes out of her closet and to spend time with Bela. At first Bela believes that she and 'Other Mommy' are friends but when 'Other Mommy' keeps asking her “Can I go inside your heart?” , Bela gets uncomfortable.

During a party that Daddo and Mommy are having, 'Other Mommy' makes an appearance, and things kick into high gear. This book oozes tension and dread. As Bela narrates, it becomes evident that things between Bela's parents are strained and don't get me started on their adult conversations and the way they each use Bela as their sounding board/confidant.

As the family tries to find a solution to their "Other Mommy' issue, the book gets creepier, more chilling, spookier, and more tense! The characters fear and anxiety jump off the pages. Bela is the narrator of Incidents Around the House, and readers get information from a child's perspective. I thought this was a fantastic idea. I remember looking under my bed and in my closet as a child to make sure nothing was lurking there. I felt for Bela as her closet door opened and her anxiety mounted.

As I mentioned, I felt for Bela the entire book but there were times I really felt for her as she heard discussions that certain adults in her life had in her presence. I did like her relationship with Daddo and her grandmother.

This is another book that I can see being made into a movie. Malerman wowed and terrified me with Bird Box and has once again delivered an eerie, chilling, creepy, unsettling, and pulse pounding read!

Atmospheric, creepy, chilling, and wonderfully horrific.

Typical Malerman. Too much hype. This book did not live up to the hype at all. I see why people liked it but it fell flat for me.

1. The MC is a little kid. The book never states her age and the way she behaves is wildly conflicting. One minute she's immature and baby-ish, the next minute she's too mature. It's all very confusing. Apparently she's supposed to be 8, I really thought she was like 6 or younger. My niece who is 8 with two younger siblings acts and talks more mature and is able to communicate better. Just saying. Girls ALWAYS mature faster mentally. My best friend's 4 yr old daughter is able to better communicate than Bella.

2. This is from the POV of this child, and it reads like it. I blew right through this book because how juvenile the language is. I feel that if the MC were observed in 3rd person throughout the book, the author could have worked in more mature language, better imagery, etc. This literally read like a special needs kid who is on the spectrum and doesn't know 'right from wrong', wrote it. Someone with a low IQ.

3. This book should have been a much shorter novella. Half the book was Bella just babbling the same few sentences over and over in her head. We really didn't need THIS much of it.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy.

This may be the scariest Malerman yet. What’s really weird, is the book is from a child’s perspective and is mostly dialogue. How can a book be this scary with the setting being a huge part of it? All of his books are totally atmospheric and rely heavily on setting. It’s why I love his books. Instead of a creepy town, we get scary closets and dark corners. Omg and they are terrifying.
Is the child haunted or is the house haunted? This story is a mash up of traditional a ghost story and a haunting of the heart. I don’t know which is more uncomfortable. Facing indiscretions and bad intentions, or facing a dark demon who wants into your body.. the child is losing either way. We should always protect the children.
Terrifying but addicting. I read it in one sitting. I may of had nightmares. Oh and now I’m making sure my closet door is always closed.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Hells bells. This book threw me for a loop. I ingest a lot of horror content in various mediums, and this is the first horror novel I’ve read in a long time that actually affected me. I got legitimate chills multiple times while I tore my way through this book. I read around 75% of Incidents in a 24 hour period - really just couldn’t put it down.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THIS NOVEL AND RECENT(ish) HORROR FILMS

Some positives and negatives:
+ The conceit of the story being written from a child’s perspective was clever and unique
+ The persistent threat of Other Mommy was reminiscent of It Follows or the creeping dread induced by the Resident Evil games (e.g. Mr X/Nemesis)
+ Perfect pacing and length. Malerman understands the value of brevity (mostly…more on that in a minute)
- I found the passages where the parents were philosophizing at Bela while they thought she was sleeping to be an absolute slog. These segments were clearly meant to hit the reader over the head with the book’s themes and it just didn’t work for me. They seemed to go on and on forever.
- Shoehorning in Goblin and nodding to (what I’m assuming are) other stories felt a bit craven to me. I love Stephen King’s weird little pocket of Maine that he wove into his work over the years, but this felt like Grandma Ruth was going to show up in an eyepatch and say “We’re putting together a team.” Not everything needs a “universe”. Totally took me out of the story.
- Much was made of the alarm system and guard dogs and then they didn’t factor into the story in a meaningful way.
- The back half of the third act just didn’t really stick the landing, but I understand it made sense thematically. The downbeat ending reminded me of Talk to Me, so much so that I wondered if Malerman was inspired (being generous with that word) by the film.

Despite my quibbles, I loved reading this and highly recommend it. I don’t recommend doing what I did - reading it on a tablet in the dark at 2 am.

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman follows Bela, an eight year old child who is being haunted by an entity she refers to as “Other Mommy.” Other Mommy is determined to get into Bela’s heart but has to get permission from Bela first. At first, Other Mommy only visits Bela at night but the longer the story goes on, the more Other Mommy comes out until she is appearing everywhere Bela goes.

This book was so scary to me. I’m not someone who gets scared by books typically and I think I’m pretty desensitized to a lot of horror after reading so much of it. But this book has actual jump scares! If you mixed Coraline with Lights Out and sprinkled a little Paranormal Activity on top, you would have this book.

This book is told entirely from Bela’s perspective and I think that decision works well because of the way a child’s mind works. Things are bigger and more scary reading them from her point of view. Adults talk over her so you only get snippets of conversations sometimes so you are forced to try to fill in the blanks. It makes a lot of the adults seem very clueless, which I can see annoying some people but it just felt realistic to me.

The atmosphere is top notch in this book. The way things are described had me looking over my shoulder while reading! If you want to be scared, I suggest reading this at night in the dark for the fullest effect.

This book is going to be a huge hit with horror fans when it comes out because it is truly creepy and unsettling. I have read a few books by this author now and this is my favorite. Make sure to put this one your radar!

*Mild spoiler warning- nothing too revealing*
I am happily child-free. I know I don't have the capacity/desire to be a mother. I like my freedom. I like to drink and maybe enjoy an herb or two when I want. And I (personally) believe that people who want to live that kind of life should be child-free, too. If you can find a balance to accommodate both, good for you. The parents in this book do NOT have that balance. It's not stated exactly how old Ursula (great name, by the way) and Russ are, but having parties with drugs and alcohol with your child at home??? I don't care if you get a babysitter or if your friends love the way your kid dances! NOT IN YOUR HOME WITH YOUR KID THERE!!! I disliked the parents immediately.

Another gripe of mine: treating your kid like your therapist. Bela knows something is rotten in Denmark- that's why she's vulnerable to Other Mommy. But for her parents to (sometimes drunkenly) unload all their sh*t onto her when they think she's sleeping... No. Not okay.

I was a nanny for twelve years and have spent the majority of my professional life working in kid-related fields. I know that kids are way more perceptive than adults give them credit for. Bela is an amazing character in that she's a kid being thrust into adulthood far too soon. Josh Malerman has written a great one this time, but it's so frustrating to read about a child whose innocence is being ripped away so early in life. It definitely makes for a scary story (Other Mommy is NO JOKE) but it still makes me sad.

OK, rant over. For now. More when I finish.

Just finished. Damn. Not what I was expecting.

Final opinion: gorgeously written. Effing creepy.

Eight-year-old Bela is the only child in a dysfunctional family full of secrets. Bela has also been keeping her own secret from Mommy and Daddo. She's been talking to an entity that hides in her closet. An entity she calls Other Mommy that at first seems friendly and benign but is now becoming increasingly bold and aggressive. Other Mommy is growing more powerful and no longer confined to Bela's room. It grows angry and frustrated that Bela will not answer its question "Can I go into your heart?" Now it follows Bela everywhere and has no fear of showing itself to others. It knows things about the family and uses it against them. It can be anywhere.

Told from Bela's point of view the story is even more terrifying when portrayed through the eyes of a child who is learning that her parents can't always protect her. She struggles on her own to understand the meaning of this entity wanting to go into her heart and her sadness at the loss of what she once considered to be a companion who was there for her when her parents were not.

This is not one of those books that I couldn't put down. Incidents Around The House is a book that I had to put down more than once. I had to take a break because it was scaring me. It brought back every childhood nightmare I had ever managed to forget. It will land on my Best Horror Novel of the Year list.

This was such a quick and easy read, though the no quotation marks was kind of hard to adjust to. This book was honestly slightly terrifying. The idea of 'other mommy' and the whole coming out of the closet thing. I enjoyed the narration and Bela and the fact that her parents believed her and tried everything they could to protect her. I also liked their interpersonal drama as well. The reason this is three stars is because I would of liked a little more. Maybe a little more scary, a little more about other mommy and precisely what 'she' was. I also felt like the ending was a little confusing and wrapped up a little too quickly.

A good ole spooky story about secrets that haunt your life and want to take over. This is told from the perspective of a little girl who has an imaginary friend who uses her friendship to try to “get into her heart”.

If you’re looking for a horror story with family drama, secrets, and a boogeyman this is the book for you! I really hope this becomes a horror movie in the future.


Thanks to NetGalley for sharing this advanced copy in return for my honest review.

This book really kept me hooked which is totally out of my normal since its a horror book. I may look into more from this author!

This was an incredibly read of an amazing horror book! My mistake to read this before going to bed with the lights out because mannn - this was scary AF. I read this like watching a really scary film, but even better. The wording, the pacing, the action, just everything encompassing this book was worth the time and the hair standing up on the back of your neck.

One odd thing was about 15% through I wasn't so sure how old Bela was. I didn't recall it being said in the book. It wasn't until I reread the synopsis that I realized Bela was 8, and that made the writing style even more definite in its wording. I knew she was a young girl, but I just didn't realize she was 8. Anyway, what an amazing and scary read this was and I highly recommend it. This was wild and the monologues were kinda fun to read, pulling you out from the horror just a little bit to read about humanities. This was my first read of this author but now I'm a huge fan!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this incredible horror book. All opinions are my own.

Ever since Bird Box, I have loved Josh Malerman's books. Thank you to NetGalley for this arc because it rully did help me get out of a massive reading funk! I read this back in February, maybe even January (time goes by wayyyy too quick) and I still recall the tension I felt and how I was scared to read this at night. First book I had read in a L.O.N.G time that actually kept my attention and made me WANT to read!

What a great year for horror fans everywhere! Why? There have already been a few books released this year that surely will be contenders for my Best Horror of 2024 list, and now I have added INCIDENTS AROUND THE HOUSE.

Young Bela has mentioned "Other Mommy" several times to her family, but no one seemed to be listening. Other Mommy lives in Bela's closet, or at least she used to. She used to be confined to Bela's room, but now she seems to be following Bela, even on a trip to the playground. No one is really paying attention though, until finally Bela's real mommy gets a glimpse of her. From that moment on the tension steadily hums as the scares get darker and more frequent. As Bela's parents search for answers, the only answer that they come up with is to tell Bela to continue saying "No" when Other Mommy asks her if she can come in to Bela's heart. What is Other mommy trying to accomplish? Why has she attached herself to Bela? You'll have to read this to find out!

Nearly 400 pages flew by in what seemed like seconds to me. I was so engaged with this severely dysfunctional family, I did not want to put this book down. The mystery of Other Mommy was intriguing as was the family's hunt for someone that could help them. Aside from all this, there were other family dramas occurring and all of that just added to the realistic feeling of this fast paced familial nightmare.

As a seasoned horror reader of 40 some odd years, rarely does a book actually scare me. I must admit though, that at times, this one did. The visual of Other Mommy as drawn by Malerman's incredible imagination is going to haunt me for a long, long time.

I say, BRAVO! My highest recommendation!

*ARC from publisher.*

This book was eerie and unsettling from start to finish. I love the fact that the book was written from the point of view of the child, Bella. Everything to a kid is more terrifying than it really is-which makes it more terrifying for the reader. In this case, Bella’s point of view was just the tip of the iceberg, as the Other Mother was worse than she realized. The constant shadows and creaking noises provide nightmare-inducing terror and suffocating dread. Malerman also did a great job of weaving in real life cruelties that have opened up a way for the villain to latch onto Bella; it’s real life that is what breaks us, sharpens our edges, and obliterates our innocence.

This story was a great haunting/poltergeist inspired plot whose prose is jarring and abrupt. It encompasses childhood fears and adult disbelief-colliding violently and thoroughly. This is a perfect book for horror fans, and will stick with you after you read the ending.

"Can I go inside your heart?

Bela, a precocious 8 year old, loves her Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth more than anything in the world. Lately, though, there is Other Mommy that lives inside her closet and wants to be her friend. Before long, Other Mommy, is coming out of the closet and asking Bela things that make her uncomfortable. She mentions Other Mommy to her parents but of course they think it's the wild imaginings of a child.

Until, they have a house party with friends and one of those friends also sees Other Mommy causing her to run screaming from the house and confirming that their daughter was telling the truth.

Who or what is Other Mommy? You'll have to read this to find out!

Do you like to be scared? Then this is the book for YOU!!!

I worried that a book being narrated by an 8 year old would be too annoying and juvenile but I was so wrong. Bela gave this story authenticity and it was so effective in frightening me to see things through her eyes. Other Mommy is straight out of a nightmare. To see her parents fumble time and time again through this hellscape they now found themselves in really got under my skin. I wanted so badly for them to have a happy ending.

Josh Malerman didn't just knock this out of the park, he knocked it into another dimension. He blew me away with his debut, Bird Box, but nothing else I have read of his has impressed. I couldn't finish either Pearl or Daphne and I wondered what happened to the genius writer that created the world of Bird Box. Well, I've found him again. This is the caliber of work I have expected of him. Absolutely everything about this book worked for me. The dialogue, the atmosphere, the foreboding sense of dread had me shivering. A real peak through your fingers kind of book because the horror is inescapable. AND. IT. NEVER. LET'S. UP. So don't think your going to get comfortable at any time while reading this, you won't, and it's for that reason why I can't praise this book enough.

For me this is a horror lovers dream (nightmare?) come true! EVERY STAR IMAGINABLE! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine for my complimentary copy.